Smart cards are one of the most secure methods to store certificates and corresponding private keys used for authentication/signing and are promoted by many private and governmental organizations such as the German Federal Office for Information Security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, BSI) and the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Personal Desktop communicates with the smart card and integrates with the computer's operating system or application using Microsoft Crypto API Windows and PKCS#11 on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Personal Desktop is available on most common platforms: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux (Ubuntu, Red Hat). Personal Desktop client supports 20+ different smart card types and is available on 5 different languages. See Personal Desktop Client requirements and interoperability for more information.